Future Tense Newsletter: The Government Has Made Privacy Laws a Lot Worse … Again

If you’ve felt a little more paranoid than normal today, it could be the super blue blood moon—or it could be that a couple of weeks ago, Congress passed a bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for another six years. While the law is known for allowing the government to target foreigners for intelligence surveillance, it also poses a number of privacy threats to average Americans. Robyn Greene expands on how the government might use the renewed act to collect your data.

That magic (Leap) touch: Would being able to re-create touch in virtual spaces fix our bad behavior online? Jeremy Bailenson explores the idea in this excerpt from his new book.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s legacy is one of imagining the future through contemplating the present, something we can all learn from, writes Jacob Brogan.

#mood: Heather Schwedel explains how GIFs are the new mood rings, giving us a panacea of new options to express our feelings and interior lives.

Is Tim Cook Swole? Slate investigates if the private Apple CEO is more corporeal than his façade lets on.

ICOops: The world’s first “decentralized bank” is a big, fat cryptocurrency scam, says the SEC.

Events:

Join Future Tense and TechCongress on Thursday, Feb. 8, in Washington to consider whether our democracy will have the capacity to address such complex issues as genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and climate change adaptation—and whether our quest for technological and scientific advancement continues to be subjected to sound democratic governance. Lunch will be served. For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website.